Serious Games Helping Teens Deal With Type 2 Diabetes

Helping teens recognize type 2 diabetes and
make healthier lifestyle choices is the theme of this Serious Game - an
interactive, first-person, educational story that follows a young teenage girl who
learns she has type 2 diabetes.

I Got This raises teens’
and families’ awareness of this serious disease, which is increasingly common worldwide.
The Serious Game also illustrates how healthy changes in diet and exercise can
help diabetic teens cope and family members reduce their own disease risk.

Told in a real-world setting, I Got This focuses on the symptoms, remediation, and social aspects of the life-changing disease. The game is free and available for mobile and
tablet devices on iOS and Android.

I Got This was created
with funding from the National Institutes of Health, in collaboration with
advice from the UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital and curriculum developers at
the Hall, Tufts University, and Children's National Health System.

In the game,Emily is a high schooler who is struggling with her schoolwork,
sports and friendships because she feels tired and irritable, has gained
weight, and needs to frequently use the bathroom. She doesn’t know she has type
2 diabetes, or that her family has a history of and is at risk of getting the
disease, until she passes out at school and is sent for medical tests.

The realistic storyline captures how stressful
type 2 diabetes can be and how negatively it can affect teenagers’ social
interactions. I Got This also
conveys how important support from family and friends is in addition to ongoing
medical oversight.

“By relating to a young character who learns
she has this disease and copes with it through positive changes and family
support, both teens and adults can empower themselves to deal with type 2
diabetes and help their own families and friends,” says app developer Matt Lewandowski
of the Lawrence Hall of Science Center for Technology Innovation. Type 2 diabetes
often goes undiagnosed for long periods because people don’t know they are showing
classic symptoms. Teens and their families may have no idea that adolescents
can even be at risk for this disease.

Game Background

The team at UC Berkeley's Lawrence Hall of
Science spent nearly 2 years working in conjunction with the UCSF Benioff
Children’s Hospital Oakland to create a game called Monster Heart Medic, an
educational kid’s game about the cardiovascular system.

During that time, hospital staff and educators
repeatedly stressed the need for better tools that would help them address a
growing issue: type 2 diabetes. Type 2 diabetes is one of the fastest growing
diseases globally with close to 300 million people currently afflicted. The
disease is especially problematic within minority and lower class communities
where access to information about the repercussions of obesity and a sedentary
lifestyle is limited.

Given this, the team devised I Got This as a game that focused on
helping kids understand and cope with type 2 diabetes - not just the science, but
also the social issues that go along with the disease.

The goal with I Got This is to show kids that although serious, type 2 diabetes
can be overcome through lifestyle choices and strong support from family and
friends.

I Got This is a
companion app to two other existing health apps created by the Lawrence Hall of
Science: the free action adventure game Monster
Heart Medic and the free DIY Human
Body app which uses hands-on activities to teach kids about the human body.

About the Lawrence Hall of Science

The Lawrence Hall of Science,
the University of California, Berkeley’s
public science center, has been providing parents, kids, and educators with
opportunities to engage with science since 1968. The Hall investigates,
creates, and evaluates educational material and methods, professional
development programs, and hands-on learning experiences for their public science
center, schools, communities, and homes. They develop programs that engage across
the learning continuum—from simple curiosity to deep understanding. Their
programs are highly regarded in any learning environment—from informal to afterschool
to formal K-12 classrooms.

In the mobile environment, the Hall has
produced a series of DIY science learning apps which have been featured in
Wired Magazine, Gizmodo UK, FamilyFun Magazine, and Homeschool.com and won a
Parents’ Choice Silver Medal. DIY Nano, DIY Nano HD, DIY Sun Science, DIY Lake
Science, and DIY Human Body let students and families have fun learning science
at home, at school, or in out-of-school settings with engaging hands-on
activities, interactives, and educational videos.